Still I Rise
Coming Soon…
“Where is my grandmother’s vote?!” asks Thiri, a democracy activist, human rights documenter, and movement educator, thus framing the military’s planned upcoming election through a single, unresolved question rooted in personal loss. Her core argument is that Myanmar’s struggle today is not a failed revolution, but a long, cyclical people’s movement whose legitimacy rests on the military’s history of fraudulent elections and stolen votes, along with their own extended sacrifice and sustained moral agency. To Thiri, the most powerful form of resistance now is preserving people’s dignity, voice, and mutual care amid prolonged uncertainty.
She begins by grounding abstraction in lived experience. Her grandmother, who was eighty-two at the time, insisted on voting in person in the November 2020 general election, despite being eligible for early voting from home, carefully marked the date on a calendar in her own handwriting. On election day morning, she awoke before dawn and went to the polling station to cast her ballot for the National League for Democracy. A week later, she passed away. Thus, her grandmother never witnessed the coup that overturned the election results, which spared her the pain of seeing what she regarded as a sacred civic duty rendered meaningless. For Thiri, the legitimacy of the current political crisis begins there. She stresses that the meaning of the military’s so-called “election” cannot be separated from the fact that a real, valid election took place five years ago, in which millions of votes— including her grandmother’s— were cast in good faith, but never honored.
From this starting point, Thiri argues that any new election organized by the same military that nullified the 2020 vote lacks both moral and political legitimacy. She describes it as an insult to the people, and one that attempts to overwrite an unresolved theft rather than address it. In her view, democracy cannot be rebooted without reckoning with the original violation. Allowing a new vote to proceed without restoring or accounting for the previous outcome treats civic participation as disposable and erases the moral contract between citizens and governance.
This framing leads into her analysis as to why the election matters differently to different actors. Thiri explains that the election is a major concern for the military leadership and for certain international stakeholders, but not for the people bearing the consequences of war. For the junta, she argues, the election functions as an exit strategy designed to repackage continued military dominance in the guise of civilian governance, preserving command structures and shielding leaders from accountability. She situates this effort in the context of its battlefield losses, declining morale, internal dissent, and pressure from regional actors who seek a stabilizing narrative rather than an open-ended conflict. The election, she explains, offers the appearance of closure without delivering justice, legitimacy, or peace.
For ordinary people, the election is garnering not panic or anticipation, Thiri observes, just widespread indifference. Those engaged in armed resistance continue fighting. Those committed to nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience, documentation, or diaspora advocacy continue their work. No one she speaks with believes the election will end airstrikes, restore safety, or resolve political deadlock. As a result, the event feels detached from lived reality. The deeper danger, she warns, lies in the possibility that international actors may accept the election as sufficient progress and disengage, leaving vulnerable communities more exposed to violence.
To explain the emotional weight of the moment, Thiri turns to movement theory, which she uses in her own work facilitating nonviolent resistance training. She introduces a framework that understands social movements as cyclical rather than linear. Movements emerge from long-standing grievances, ignite when a triggering event meets collective readiness, surge into a peak of mass participation and hope, and then inevitably descend into repression, fatigue, and disillusionment. This downturn, she emphasizes, is not failure but a natural phase. She situates Myanmar’s early 2021 protests as a peak marked by mass mobilization and shared optimism, followed by years of exhaustion, fragmentation, and grief.
Thiri argues that much of the present despair comes from resisting this natural rhythm. She critiques leadership and advocacy spaces that attempt to sustain perpetual optimism through constant “positive messaging.” In her view, insisting that people remain emotionally at a peak denies them permission to rest, sharpens burnout, and ultimately weakens the resolve. She contends that movements endure not by suppressing exhaustion but by acknowledging it, allowing reflection, and preparing deliberately for what comes next.
She identifies the present as a transitional stage between prolonged disillusionment and renewed preparation. At this moment, she believes the most important work is not chasing dramatic victories but recognizing small, cumulative ones that sustain people power. She points to symbolic acts of defiance, continued mutual aid, and the refusal of many in exile to abandon their identity or hope of return. These actions, she explains, do not topple regimes on their own, but they preserve the social fabric necessary for future transformation.
For Thiri, weakening the enemy is only half of movement work. The other half is strengthening the people. From this perspective, survival itself becomes a form of victory. Despite years of airstrikes, mass arrests, and systematic brutality, the military has failed to win legitimacy or loyalty. People continued to resist in everyday ways, to help one another, and to refuse to normalize oppression. She says that these quiet forms of resistance are not a consolation prize for the ability to endure but evidence of moral and political strength.
Thiri connects her analysis to her own emotional evolution over five years of upheaval. She acknowledges ongoing grief and sadness, noting that she regularly hears traumatic stories and carries the weight of collective loss. At the same time, understanding movement cycles allows her to regulate how much emotional energy she expends and where she directs it. She describes herself as realistic and commitment to purpose. By focusing on her specific role rather than comparing herself to others, she sustains long-term engagement without paralysis.
This reflection leads into her assessment of resistance leadership. She expresses disappointment with leadership decisions and outcomes, but she resists framing them solely as moral failures. She points to the decades of repression, interrupted education, and widespread trauma that have shaped the movement’s current leaders. Many, she explains, never had the opportunity to develop reflective strategic capacity because survival demanded constant motion. Understanding this context, she argues, does not absolve leaders of responsibility, but it does explain why reflection and openness have been so difficult to sustain.
Despite this otherwise nuanced understanding, Thiri identifies one failure that she cannot excuse: the restriction of free speech within resistance spaces. She argues that silencing dissent contradicts the very values the movement claims to defend. Enforcing a single approved narrative, often justified as necessary for international legitimacy, undermines internal democracy and collective intelligence. For her, the inability to tolerate disagreement represents a deeper crisis than diplomatic setbacks or military losses, explaining that belief in eventual victory should eliminate the need for distortion. If people truly believe in their cause, she asks, why suppress uncomfortable truths? She views honesty as a prerequisite for resilience. Movements collapse not because they acknowledge difficulty, she argues, but because they deny it! Suppressing criticism weakens trust, fuels resentment, and reproduces the authoritarian habits the movement seeks to dismantle.
Thiri situates the current struggle within a longer historical arc. She rejects the portrayals of earlier uprisings, particularly 1988, as failures because they ultimately did not lead to victory. Instead, she sees them as foundational chapters that make later resistance possible. She says that each generation inherits lessons, networks, and moral commitments from those before it; the 2021 movement does not supersede earlier struggles but extends them. Likewise, what happens now will shape future generations’ understanding of resistance, regardless of the immediate outcomes.
Throughout the interview, Thiri returns to the importance of role clarity. Regarding her own situation, she does not claim leadership or authority; instead, she describes herself as a source of steadiness, someone others can lean on when exhausted. She frames her role as holding light rather than commanding action. By choosing her battles carefully and trusting timing, she conserves energy and remains present for others when they need her. For Thiri, this perspective extends to clarity around understanding the role of democracy as well. Asked why the Burmese people should believe in democratic values amid global hypocrisy and abandonment, she answers that she sees no better alternative. She distinguishes democracy as lived freedom rather than institutional perfection. What people seek, she explains, is not abstract governance but the ability to live without fear, speak freely, access basic rights, and be treated as human. Abandoning these values, she argues, hands victory to dictators who thrive on despair.
Thiri also frames emotional self-preservation as resistance. Authoritarian systems aim not only to control territory but to occupy the people’s minds by cultivating fear, bitterness, and hopelessness. Through holding peace, kindness, and joy whenever possible, she refuses to allow that to happen. She affirms, “I would rather choose to remember the kindness and the community and the resilience of people that are against all the brutal form of any form of oppression.”
In closing, Thiri emphasizes impermanence and continuity, acknowledging that she speaks from a particular stage of her life and that her perspective will evolve. She expresses gratitude for the ability to share vulnerability publicly and recognizes that future versions of herself may speak differently. What remains constant is her commitment to people, memory, and dignity.